Installed Building Products, Inc. (NYSE:IBP) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Miller: Yeah. Just to clarify on that, we definitely expect that multi-family starts are going to be down. And so if you think of say single-family in the $1 million to $1.1 million range and multifamily around $400,000, right? I mean that basically is flat to what happened last year for starts at $1.42 million or so. So we are aligned with that flatness if you will in total starts because single-family will be better and we think that single-digits and multi-family will be down double digits basically now that the macro environment. We believe based on our backlogs and what we see that we will not be down in multi-family. We will continue to see yes solid growth. There may be not as good as we’ve experienced over the past several years and several quarters, but we believe we will continue to experience growth in 2024 in the multifamily business.

Philip Ng: So unbalanced is mid single-digits volume growth for you guys a good way to think about your profile and in beverage correctly might still be down in 1Q maybe, but possibly that’s kind of build out at the shape of the year?

Michael Miller: Yeah, that’s right. I mean obviously there are a lot of things that depend on that but done now and we think that volume growth comes primarily from the national builders.

Philip Ng: Okay. That’s helpful. And I think thinking bigger picture and I think, I don’t know Jeff, Michael how constructive you guys are on single-family longer-term and certainly this year as well. You know, certainly, we saw some bottlenecks during the pandemic when we had explosive starts and there’s certain bottlenecks. Those have alleviated quite a bit but inflation supply still fairly tight. When we look at the 2025 and beyond, how to how challenging will that be? Do you think you’re going to still pretty steady growth and not say up bad thing for you guys? It’s been actually pretty good overall from a cash flow earnings. But just kind of help us think through when we look at 2025 and beyond your ability in an industry service some of that demand?

Michael Miller: I appreciate that question. It’s obviously going to depend upon where the demand is coming from. But based on our current expectations that the national builders production builders are going to continue to take share on. I think that material will continue to be tight. And you know some of it we answer to the previous question the mix of what’s being installed for that shift towards production builders benefit availability if you will. We do believe that there are as I think everybody on this call appreciates you know copper is adding some additional capacity this year. We believe as we progress out to 2025 and 2026 that some of the other manufacturers will probably add additional capacity as well that will be productive for the industry.

So that continued mid single-digit growth, one is necessary from a housing perspective just in terms of the availability of housing, but we absolutely believe the industry is going to be able to manage effectively in that kind of environment.

Philip Ng : Okay. Appreciate the color. Thank you, sir.

Operator: Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Noah Merkousko with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Noah Merkousko: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong results. So first, I think, the big story of 2023 was value over volume. You clearly see that in the results. And as we look to 2024 with the improving demand backdrop, especially, on single-family do you think that there’s an opportunity to unlock volume from potential customers that may be didn’t ascribe value to your services in 2023. But now as things kind of ramp up though you’re able to sort of again unlock that kind of volume?

Jeff Edwards: Sure. But maybe it makes sense. But we see it more growing with our existing customers, their volume as opposed to chasing new customers that don’t fully value our services.

Noah Merkousko: Okay. But you don’t think that those customers that didn’t buy your services that might shift here as demand improves? Or do you think it will just be the same story?

Jeff Edwards: It typically does for sure.

Noah Merkousko: Okay. And then second question just a more macro. Just wanted to get your view more on the macro and the consequences of if we do see the Fed begin to lower rates in the back half of the year? Clearly, I think that would be a positive overall for single-family. But what — to what extent do you think existing home sales sort of maybe coming off the bottom could compete with new demand. And then a second point to that, you know there’s been a lot of talk on this call about, you’re seeing a lot more demand from the larger production builders, but if and when rates fall, does that come does that allow the smaller and more local players to participate more heavily in the market?